‘No Going Back’ — Kim Jong Un’s Sister Dares Trump, IAEA, Declares North Korea’s Nuclear Arsenal Permanent

• Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has rejected renewed international demands for denuclearisation, declaring that Pyongyang’s status as a nuclear weapons state is “absolute” and cannot be reversed.

• Her defiant statement came as the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference in Vienna focused on North Korea’s expanding nuclear capabilities and renewed calls for the country to abandon its weapons programme.

• The warning also lands amid US President Donald Trump’s renewed push for dialogue with Kim Jong Un, with Trump saying he expects to meet the North Korean leader later this year despite the unresolved dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.

• North Korea has continued strengthening its nuclear and missile capabilities since the collapse of the 2019 Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi, while South Korean estimates put Pyongyang’s arsenal at between 80 and 120 nuclear weapons.

September 17, () – North Korea has delivered a fresh and defiant rejection of international efforts to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, with Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un, declaring that there is “no going back” on the country’s nuclear status.

Kim Yo Jong said Thursday that North Korea’s position as a nuclear weapons state was “absolute” and could not be reversed, directly challenging international efforts to persuade Pyongyang to give up its atomic arsenal.

Her statement, carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), came as the 70th regular session of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference was taking place in Vienna, Austria.

“The DPRK’s position as a nuclear weapons state is absolute which cannot be reversed with anything,” Kim Yo Jong said, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

She dismissed discussions about denuclearising North Korea as “familiar silly talk” and said those who believed Pyongyang could still be persuaded to abandon its nuclear weapons would “only hear the word of idiots.”

“No matter how rhetorically the hostile forces may deny, the reality in which the nuclear position of the DPRK has been permanently settled physically and legally cannot change even a bit,” she added.

Kim Yo Jong also defended North Korea’s nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against what Pyongyang describes as hostile actions by foreign powers.

Her remarks reinforce North Korea’s increasingly entrenched position that its nuclear weapons are not temporary bargaining chips but a permanent component of its national security strategy.

IAEA Raises Nuclear Concerns

The statement came at a particularly sensitive moment, with the IAEA warning about the continued expansion of North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure.

The agency’s latest safeguards assessment has detailed an increase in Pyongyang’s uranium enrichment capacity and the expansion of key nuclear facilities.

Delegates at the IAEA conference have urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme and return to its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

North Korea, however, has consistently rejected such demands, arguing that its nuclear capability is necessary to deter threats from the United States and its allies.

The latest statement from Kim Yo Jong goes further by insisting that Pyongyang’s nuclear status has been settled both “physically and legally.”

Defiance Comes As Trump Seeks Fresh Talks

The declaration also comes as Trump has renewed efforts to reopen direct engagement with Kim Jong Un.

Trump said last month that he expected to meet the North Korean leader later this year and disclosed that he believed Pyongyang possessed 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons.

The US President has also spoken positively about his relationship with Kim and has indicated that personal diplomacy could help revive engagement between Washington and Pyongyang.

However, the nuclear issue remains the central obstacle.

While Washington has historically pursued the denuclearisation of North Korea, Pyongyang is now openly insisting that its nuclear capability is permanent.

That fundamental disagreement could complicate any attempt by Trump to revive the diplomacy that stalled during his first term.

Trump and Kim met three times during Trump’s first presidency — in Singapore in 2018, Hanoi in 2019 and at the Korean Demilitarized Zone later that year.

The most consequential meeting was the Hanoi summit, which collapsed without an agreement after Washington and Pyongyang failed to resolve differences over sanctions relief and the extent of North Korea’s nuclear concessions.

Since then, North Korea has continued developing its nuclear and missile programmes.

North Korea’s Arsenal Expanding

The precise size of Pyongyang’s nuclear stockpile remains uncertain.

Trump said in August that North Korea possessed 57 nuclear weapons, but South Korean Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back subsequently told lawmakers that estimates generally placed the North’s arsenal at between 80 and 120 nuclear weapons.

He stressed that the figure was based on estimates from private research organisations and could not be officially confirmed by South Korea’s military.

The difference in estimates underscores the difficulty of determining the exact size of North Korea’s nuclear programme, which operates under intense secrecy.

But regardless of the precise number, Pyongyang has continued expanding its strategic capabilities.

On Thursday, North Korean Vice Defence Minister Kim Kang Il separately said growing military cooperation among the United States, South Korea and Japan justified further strengthening the country’s nuclear forces.

He described North Korea’s nuclear status as irreversible and linked the expansion of its arsenal to what Pyongyang regards as an increasingly threatening regional military environment.

The comments came days after North Korea conducted a missile launch following a US-South Korean-Japanese military exercise. Pyongyang has repeatedly condemned such exercises as preparations for military action against it.